A Talk
by Monte-chan
Summary: A twist on the talk shared at the Five Kage Summit, between Fem!Gaara and Fem!Sasuke (Satsuki). A one-shot. Rated T for mentions of violence. BONUS! Now featuring "Another Talk," featuring Satsuki with Team 7 in the manga's epilogue.
1. A Talk: Five Kage Summit

Author's Note: _Thought_ ; **Flashback** ; _**Thought in Flashback**_

I don't own _Naruto_. But if I did, I probably could have just made Sasuke a girl instead of a boy, and the story could have been not too much different. For a quick reference, just think of Female-Gaara and Female-Sasuke wearing the similar clothes as in canon, just fitted for their different forms.

Read and review.

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 **Naruto: A Talk**

A One-Shot

"SATSUKI UCHIHA!"

The Shadow presiding over the Land of Wind's ninja village, Gaara of the Sand, cried out to the missing-nin from the Land of Fire… the new world-class terrorist.

"We need to talk."

The last of the Uchiha had truly made a mess of things: leaving the Leaf Village devoid of one of its bloodlines was one thing, but attacking the brother of the Raikage, presumably for the Tailed Beast housed in his human form, was certain to cause international incident.

She was probably there to bring attention to herself, and by stepping into the Five Kage Summit with nothing but her sword and a trio of strange individuals, picking a fight with the Raikage himself, she certainly got it.

"You." The raven-haired renegade scanned her memories to tie the face to a name. "Gaara, right?"

Then she sneered, a furrowed brow spoiling her face's natural beauty.

"You're the sand rat I nearly defeated years ago, before you went wild and nearly destroyed the Leaf." She looked to Gaara's retainers in the distance: the brother Kankurō and the sister Temari—the "Sand Siblings," as the knowing public named them.

Satsuki remembered the sign above Gaara's head back in the conference room, one of the three she sliced away to make her entrance.

The symbol of her world's writing, its meaning: "Wind."

"Or should I call you… Kazekage?"

The Wind Shadow's sea-green eyes did not betray a sense of insult. A "sand rat," the Uchiha said? That was nothing. She had heard far worse things muttered behind her back in contempt and screamed to her face in horror, with no support or defense from her family, in her days as a vessel for the One-Tailed Tanuki.

"Your eyes are still as they used to be, Satsuki. Focused, but so vengeful," Gaara assessed. "And I did not expect any ounce of respect from you. Your ego practically preceded your arrival."

"My ego?" She corrected the Kage: "My _pride_ as a warrior—as an avenger—will be vindicated. Soon, the name of the Uchiha clan will be cleansed!"

Madara had granted her this chance to make that happen, and she would be a fool not to take it.

No, she was not loyal to the masked man. A part of her doubted "Madara" was truly his name. Whoever he was, she certainly cared not for whatever dream he had for the world. The original means to his end, his "Akatsuki," was decimated; she would know, since she personally saw the deaths of two of its members, her precious brother included.

Madara could do what he wanted, as long as Satsuki could fulfill her own aims. Once her mission was over, Satsuki would part ways with the rest of the Taka, and she would finally be free.

"All I must do, is cut the Leaf to shreds…"

Her onyx eyes changed, a pair of black and red kaleidoscopic shapes taking form… the Mangekyo Sharingan, the most manifest symbol of her despair.

"…and that starts with cutting the Hokage's head from his shoulders."

Danzō was around somewhere, perhaps plotting something as a way to take control of the Summit.

Gaara was not deterred by him, nor by the Sharingan, but certainly adjusted her vision away from those ocular weapons all the same. She'd heard of what the doujutsu could do, of course—it was her business to know.

But she also wanted to know something more.

"Tell me why."

"Why I'm turning my blade on the Hokage?" Satsuki guessed. "It doesn't matter to you. What matters is that I have my revenge."

The Kazekage shook her head.

"No. I don't mean that. I care not about your goals…" she dismissed, "…because you will not reach them. If necessary, I will strike you down, and with probable little complaint from your village's leadership. You have after all, attacked one of our fellow Kage."

Due to Gaara's sand defense, the Hidden Cloud Village's leader, Ay, was spared from the eternal flame of the ability known as Amaterasu… or, at least, most of him was, his reckless fighting costing him an arm.

"But I wonder… why? Why leave all that you have known behind? Why leave _his_ side?"

"Whose side?" She questioned, taking another guess. "The old scarecrow surely has no meaning to—oh." Her eyes narrowed, Sharingan seething at the mental image of the young man in orange and black. "You mean _him,_ don't you?"

"Yes."

They both knew his name.

"Naruto Uzumaki."

Gaara held that name, every syllable leaving her lips, in the highest regard, with the greatest fondness her heart could give. She had not held such a feeling for anyone before, even for her uncle Yashamaru before his betrayal.

The wild sunflower hair, the cerulean eyes, those whiskers that looked—she did not know the right word for it—perhaps that word "cute" used rarely by Temari sufficed. Whatever it was about him, the youngest Sand Sibling burned every feature of him into her memory, ever since their first battle in the forests of the Hidden Leaf.

A few years later, Gaara could finally replace the face of the twelve-year-old Leaf ninja in her mind with a new one: older, a bit slimmer, still giving that sympathetic gaze. It was her first sight when she awoke from her near-death upon rescue, and praised the wind itself for such a precious gift bestowed upon her eyes.

He carried her on his back all the way to the Sand, and she cherished every second of contact she had. Even now, several months since her body was finally allowed to sleep without the fear of Shukaku's reemergence, no bed in the entire Kazekage Estate could provide such comfort; no other place in all the Five Great Elemental Nations could grant her such peace.

Of course, Satsuki remembered him too.

"Yes, Naruto, my old teammate. I can hardly wait to meet him again." A tight smile, one of twisted glee came. "So I can crush him, with the rest of the Village."

"You have already left your home. You seek to destroy your own friend too?"

"HE IS NO FRIEND OF MINE!" Her voice echoed off the building's stone walls. "That fool, that weakling, only drags you down."

"Yet you hold such anger at the sound of his name, the mere thought of your connection to him." She almost smirked at the small victory. Perhaps there was the smallest chance… "He affects you. It is his greatest strength, I believe." Once again, she admired him, even if her voice did not show it. "He changes people."

"He changes nothing."

"He changed me." Every day, Gaara learned, was a new chance to prove that. "He, what he represents, could change you."

"You think I'm the same as you?" Satsuki could only gawk at this sand witch's gall. "You think you know my pain?"

"Yes." She could see it as plainly as the stone beneath her feet. "You and I are alike, Satsuki Uchiha. We both have drowned in loneliness, in darkness. The pain of bearing the One-Tail forced me to strike against the world that forced me to bear it… just as you appear to do now.

"You claim to act for your clan? Your fallen family, yes?"

"Yes," the last Uchiha replied. "And I will do it, even if it means cutting a path through everyone in this building. You will get out of my way, and you will _give me Danzō_ ," she bared a bit of her blade, "or you will fall right with him."

The former jinchuuriki ignored the threat. "But there is another way to move on from such a past, and I am living proof." She saw his face again. "There once was a way out of that darkness for you. The guiding light was right there, right beside you, in your grasp. If Naruto was there, the light surely touched you, showed you that a life with others to fill the void inside is far better than a life of pain alone.

"Yet you shun the light. You shun him. You slap away the hand he reaches out to you. You push away your comrades, your home, for a goal that would end them and you… and certainly him!"

"I do." Satsuki told her straight.

"WHY?" Gaara could not understand. "Why bear the burden alone? Why stay away? Why shun a bond that some would envy," she admitted, "something a person with such loneliness would cross an entire desert to cherish for herself?"

She did not even realize that her anger escaped.

"If I were in your place, I would have never left his light! I would have never left his side!" She declared. "I would have never let him go!"

"Hmph." A tiny, snide smirk. "You almost sound like you're in love with that loser."

Gaara's face remained still.

Satsuki could hardly believe it. "Ha! The tailed beast vessels together!" She almost laughed at such a dream. "You think you'll even see him again? You think that you'll even smash those feelings of yours through that thick blonde head of his?"

Her Sharingan returned.

"You think I won't cut out his heart before you ever get the chance?"

Gaara's anger only reignited, exemplified by a twitch of the finger, a mere ripple of the sand in her gourd. Were Shukaku still whispering into her thoughts, she would certainly have heard a suggestion to unleash every grain of sand against the one who would harm him, of all people.

It would certainly benefit her. A bit of revenge for making her shed blood three years ago, and a way to silence that little jealous voice telling her to rid herself of a rival for his attention, and with the perfectly valid justification of protecting the fragile balance of the Elemental Nations.

He would mourn, certainly, but then perhaps, in time, he would—

 _NO._ She would never do such a drastic thing, not for such petty reasons.

These disturbing thoughts were not from Shukaku. These were her own, and she silenced them. She would fight to follow his example.

Yet no matter how hopeful the Sand kunoichi was, there was also the fear, the constant fear. It existed for all ninja with people they cared about, ninja who had forged bonds on and off the field of battle. Years of time spent, of caresses earned and bidden feelings spoken, could vanish in an instant from a silent blade across the neck, or from a jutsu forcing its target to scream out his last breath in pain. Naruto was always a target due to the burden he carried, like she once did, and she knew that… her heart would not let her forget.

Gaara buried any spark of that fear into the recesses of her mind with the rest of the dark thoughts, but Satsuki could still tell.

"Don't you get it? All those bonds, those emotions…"

Satsuki could see him, feel the right hand, the hand once clutching lightning as it pierced his chest, quake. She could see his betrayal, covered in fangs and whiskers and vermillion chakra, but still as clear as her brother's blood on her hands—no, that was months ago! She had to focus!

"Friendship, rivalry…"

But she could still see Naruto's face.

His smile.

His contemptible smile.

"Love…"

Her hand clenched shut, and she shook her head to clear the visions away.

"They only distract you from the painful truths of this broken world."

"Yet, even now, in this world, there are those who persist, hoping to guide you down a brighter path. Why will you not take it?"

"Because I was never meant to be in the light. The death of my family, the bonds I had to leave behind, the things I've done… they all proved that. If I were to leave this place right now, try to turn back, what would I have left?"

Satsuki's raven hair veiled her mournful eyes.

"The only path I can take, the only way forward…"

A ghostly being, a warrior of purple chakra given mass and shape, loomed over her body. Its eyes housed no intelligence, only a haunting light.

"…is further into the darkness."

Gaara drank in the sight, and her anger ceased. All of Satsuki's hatred, pointed against the entire world, seemed to be channeled into that spectre.

She was wrong, she realized.

There was something in the eyes of the Susano'o, after all…

Pain.

"You really are consumed by the shadows, aren't you?"

Despite what Satsuki wanted to do, Gaara pitied her. Despite her own dispositions, her own emotional restraint…

"Naruto Uzumaki…"

…a tear ran down the face of the unmovable Gaara of the Sand.

She changed her mind.

She did not want to do this, to hurt the Uchiha, and hurt him.

But she would do her duty, for her village, for the Nations, and for the world.

She would do it for his sake too.

"I'm sorry."

And with those words, Gaara and Satsuki clashed.

 **END**

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 **This took me four hours. I've never finished an idea like this in one sitting before… If only law school homework went by so easily.**

 **After playing** _ **Ultimate Ninja Storm 4**_ **'s ending and looking back through the** _ **Naruto**_ **story, I've found that Masashi Kishimoto, the author who supposedly suffers from chronic embarrassment and even shut his eyes upon the big kiss scene in** _ **Naruto: THE LAST**_ **, is able to make complex male-to-male relationships of many kinds (rivals, father/son, teacher/student, blood brothers and brothers-in-arms), but just can't seem to give women the same due when it comes to the men they love. Even so, I've shipped characters all the same (ShikamaruXTemari's a favorite pairing of mine, because it's one of the few normal and realistic pairings, and of course NarutoXHinata is adorable).**

 **I'd always thought that if Sasuke was "Satsuki" instead (or Naruto a "Naruko"), the story could go nearly the same way and nothing regarding relationships would change much.**

 **You folks have to admit, Naruto chasing after Satsuki would have made for a decent tragic love story.**

 **Oh, right, Sakura… yeah, she can marry, I dunno, Lee or Choji.**

 **My work with Female-Gaara here is a tangent to this conclusion (I didn't change the name because it's too on-point). Gaara has always had this incredible admiration of Naruto (bordering on idol worship), and there's definitely no stretch to say Female-Gaara would likely be a less emotional version of pre-war Hinata: a girl with a tragic past changed by Naruto to be a better kunoichi, idolizing him and wanting to be with him.**

 **This short clip is a combo of these thoughts, acted out verbally in the attic... and the hallway… and the living room. Hope you enjoyed it.**

 **I'm still working on my** _ **Teen Titans**_ **fic, "The Titans of Tomorrow," just to remind folks. Keep an eye out for Ep IV Part 2!**

 **Until next time.**


	2. Another Talk: The Epilogue

Author's Note: _Thought_ ; **Flashback** ; **_Thought in Flashback_**

I don't own _Naruto_. I do own a copy of _Storm 4_ … and that final battle was beautiful. Worth enduring every moment of Sage Madara's annoying dodging for minutes on end.

Like before in "A Talk", Naruto, Sakura, and Female-Sasuke are wearing clothes like those in canon.

Read and review.

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 **Another Talk**

A One-Shot

"Do you really have to go?"

The trio stood at the gate, the entrance to and exit from the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

They were Team 7.

They were reunited, its third member a missing-nin no more: Satsuki Uchiha.

"I have to."

For more power, she betrayed her home village. For her clan, she slayed her own precious brother. For her clan still, she helped a deluded madman, another lost kinsman masquerading as their ancestor Madara, in his plan to lay waste to the world.

And even when she stopped him, and stopped the _real_ Madara (she was actually right about that), and stopped the surprise that came after…

She tried to strike _him_ down as well.

"I need to atone."

It was because she was so stubborn.

It was hard for her to finally give up. Satsuki had never given up on anything, no matter how difficult the task was. She had stood up to the Snake Sannin, a young Jinchuuriki, the Five Kage, and even the Ten-Tails itself in its various forms. She had certainly felt fear, but she never gave up.

And yet, she submitted to that… that…!

 _That Naruto._

Naruto Uzumaki.

He was the thorn in her side.

He was her greatest rival.

He was the one who trained all over the Land of Fire for three years just to get her back—a fact she never realized was so important to her until it was nearly too late.

He was her friend, damned as she was to admit it.

He was stubborn too.

"You don't have to do this alone."

Sakura was still talking, like she had been on the way to the gate. Satsuki was listening, mostly, but her eyes—one onyx, one Rinnegan—didn't meet her.

Instead, they just stared at his right arm.

His _new_ arm, anyway.

Bound from the elbow down in gauze and covered by the sleeve of his new jacket, the new prosthesis cultivated from Hashirama Senju's cells would do the same job as the arm she had found herself clashing with plenty of times over the last few years.

About a week or so ago, he'd asked her to spar with him once, so he could test it out to the fullest. He could finally form a Rasengan with the thing—and then he wanted to turn it into a stump all over again.

 _He's such an idiot._

That was what she thought in the moment, and that was what she told him to his face, before she slammed the door in it.

A few seconds later, out of his sight, she let out a tight-lipped smile.

He acknowledged her strength; he always had. He didn't care that she was a woman. He never pulled his punches for any opponent, except maybe that kid Konohamaru she met (and frightened, before he said well within earshot like his tactless mentor, "She's scary, big bro, but she's kinda pretty too!"). Naruto could tell that Satsuki had plenty of power to spare, even after she refused her own prosthesis.

She didn't want it, for two reasons.

The first was petty, she admitted to herself: she didn't want to look like their former enemy Obito. Even with her new power, courtesy of her acquired eye, she wasn't sure how to get the skin tones of the false arm and original skin to match, or if they ever could. There was a reason Naruto hid his arm from the world. She didn't want to stare at a limb even paler than her own natural tone.

It was one of the increasingly frequent times she found herself caring about her looks, and the recent development slightly confused her. Sakura had seemed to notice the difference in her, nudging Satsuki into trying out more clothing whenever the latter's gaze looked into a store window for just a moment too long.

 _What is with that woman's obsession with reds and pinks!?_

She might have been the one who would birth the next Uchiha generation, but that was years down the road, she decided a long time ago. She surely had no one to impress…

…did she?

 _This peace is changing me,_ she discovered.

The second reason was more important: she didn't deserve that arm. Not after what she did.

Satsuki may have helped save the world to bring forth a new era of peace, but ninja tribunals were still quite in effect, and she stood before an international one at that. Kakashi pulled a lot of strings, and Naruto pleaded with a lot of volume, to spare her from an execution or life imprisonment. The Sixth Hokage and the Hero of the Fourth War knew her best, they explained, and they saw her fight for the ninja world she once offended, thankfully forgetting to mention that she wanted to kill the Five Kage in their genjutsu-induced sleep.

Team 7 won the argument, which is why she was here, still breathing fresh air and not in the afterlife with Itachi… or in a worse place.

She would thank them by staying far away from them.

"Don't worry, Sakura." Naruto spoke for once, silent most of the way there. It was strange seeing him so… calm, so composed. "She's not alone."

He was right. Years ago in the Valley of the End, and months ago in the same place, he was right.

Even if Satsuki wanted to be alone, even when she wanted to drift into the darkness that polluted the world to bring it revolution, he just wouldn't let go. (Neither would Sakura, and she had to respect that, no matter how annoying she could be.)

She was never truly alone, thanks to that bond. It was why she gave in. It was why she took the hand reaching out to her.

She took his hand.

…After she shredded one of them into atoms.

 _Stop thinking about it!_

She couldn't look at his arm anymore.

"Are you sure you don't want someone to back you up? It can still be a dangerous world."

Ah, the same old Sakura. She was still worrying, still trying to join with her at the hip. Wasn't that Lee person still chasing after her, though? Satsuki had forgotten. She wasn't all that informed about her class's romances—and, not that she judged such people, but she still wasn't _completely_ sure about Sakura's… proclivities.

At least she wasn't as bad as Karin.

"I'll be fine," The raven-haired atoner assured. "This is my journey, my repentance." She spoke honestly, "My sins have nothing to do with you."

"Nothing, huh?" Sakura's green eyes fell, and her posture fell with them. She really did care about Satsuki—both of her teammates, really. She may have had parents unlike them, but they were still her family, and she loved them. She told Satsuki before she left, at least, and tried to tell Naruto before the Summit.

But now Satsuki was leaving again! AGAIN! And to top it off, she barely acknowledged her presence, AGAI-

 _Thump._

Two fingers met Sakura's prominent forehead.

"Later, Sakura."

The rosette stopped both movement and thought.

"Huh?"

It was a gesture shared between a brother and a sister, and now between the two of them.

Sakura Haruno was annoying.

But Satsuki wouldn't have her any other way.

"What you've done for me, what you tried to do… I do appreciate it."

Itachi and Satsuki… Satsuki and Sakura…

They were close enough.

"Thank you."

The reaction of Tsunade's student, from her perspective, was reasonable.

"HUH?"

While Sakura was trying to wrap her mind around this new, grateful Satsuki, there was one more person for the future departed to see.

"Naruto."

What was going on in those eyes of his? The blue in them seemed so different now, like a clear sky instead of a raging whirlpool.

She wondered if he felt this way about her: confused at the person in front of him, wondering if he could see past the wall—

Wait… of course he did. He told her at the Five Kage Summit, how he wanted to understand her. He told her at the Valley of the End, that she interested him. The mystery of Satsuki Uchiha, the one problem he never could figure out.

Deep down, he had interested her too—how he could keep smiling, even making a fool of himself, when the pain and loneliness dug so deep… how he could keep getting stronger… keep getting closer to her…

But before she could unravel the question that was him, she first had to learn about herself.

She needed to know what she was meant to be in this new world.

And learning that meant doing so without the team…

…without Naruto again.

Something in her chest gave a disturbing skip at the thought. That was happening lately too, and her journey would hopefully help her know why.

Of course, leaving the village didn't mean she would leave empty-handed.

Naruto's natural arm reached back into his pocket. She looked back down (avoiding the right arm in her peripheral vision) to see his gift.

She froze.

"You kept it?"

The blue fabric and gleaming steel… the line carved horizontally through the Leaf.

"Of course I did."

The headband.

 _Her_ headband.

"I can't take it."

"It's always been yours, Satsuki."

He never even glanced at it. She wouldn't know, but he had already committed the threads and metal, the very feeling on his fingers, to memory. Besides bruises and a hole in his chest, it was the last thing he ever received from her before they first parted.

 _Why did he keep it?_

"It's been waiting for you to take it back."

She looked away. As far as she was concerned, it was just another symbol of her failure, just like her brother's corpse, just like her own missing limb. "I'm not worthy to-"

"Besides, you gotta have something to liven up those gloomy-looking clothes of yours!"

Her onyx eye twitched, and she found herself back in the same old routine.

 _That tactless fool!_

"My clothes are fine! _You're_ the one who won't ditch that eyesore orange! Those fangirls can spot you a mile away because of your ridiculous tastes!"

That wasn't just an insult. He truly was starting to collect quite a few admirers—to say nothing about the Hyuuga girl popping up to eat with him now and again. A nice girl and all, and she apparently helped Naruto out in the war, but whenever Satsuki saw those lavender eyes land on Naruto, that weird look in her gaze…

That strange quiver in her chest acted up again.

She might have to come back sooner rather than later.

But that was neither here nor there. The headband was in front of her.

"I'm not even gonna argue about this anymore." He pouted, trying and failing to be the bigger man (he clearly didn't have a good comeback). "Just take the dang headband, Satsuki!"

"Fine."

She hated how he could rouse her anger so easily—until she realized her contrition had disappeared.

He made her feel better, and he didn't know it… probably. Did he actually read her emotions? Was he actually that perceptive?

She couldn't refuse him.

 _Curse him._

Her eyes and head turned left, the purple orb concealed behind her bang, her sight disinterested. She put out her hand.

"Then give it to me already, loser."

She grabbed it…

And he didn't let go.

"You better keep it this time." Satsuki turned back to see that grin of his, the one he gave before a good fight, almost challenging her to break their bond. "When I see you again, I expect you to show it off like you do those eyes of yours."

"Oh, I'll hold onto it." She couldn't resist returning with her own challenge and tense grin. "We'll see if you can lay a scratch on it in our next battle."

"It's a date."

In her hand alone, the headband was still a bit warm from his touch, and it felt heavier than she remembered.

She supposed the promise brought the extra weight.

Before anything else could hold her down, she turned her back and looked outward.

The forest before her might contain some minor village's conflict she would incidentally enter. Someone who wanted her powerful eyes might be lurking within its endless foliage. An even greater threat to the world could be waiting, within or beyond the Land of Fire's borders.

She would face them all.

All she had to do…

"Naruto… Sakura… Wait for me."

…was start walking.

She was gone. For how long, no one knew, but she would be gone.

As the Uchiha grew more distant, Sakura returned to normal. She gave a silent prayer. "I hope she'll be okay."

"Of COURSE she will!" Naruto blasted. "She's Satsuki, isn't she? Nothing keeps her down."

Another grin reached his lips.

"Just you wait."

His blue eyes never left the departing Uchiha.

"She'll come back to me soon."

Sakura, preparing to walk back into the village, tripped at the sound of his words. Reclaiming her balance, she gawked at him. "What did you say?"

"I said, she'll come back to us soon."

"But," she stammered, "You just said…"

"Said what?" He tilted his head.

Sakura just shook her head, her bangs waving left and right.

He always was dense when it came to girls, his head as thick as a rock.

His heart was apparently as stupid, too, as it was big.

Their bond always was something different, Sakura observed.

 _I just wish they weren't too stubborn to see it!_

"You're such an idiot, Naruto."

Hopefully he'd get it by the time Satsuki came back.

And she would come back.

All of Team 7 was sure of it.

"What did I say?"

 **END**

* * *

 **This chapter, mostly from Satsuki's perspective, featured a less structured writing style than I expected would come out, more "stream of thoughts" than "tale of events."**

 **Feelings are stubborn things for the main cast of _Naruto_ , especially for Sasuke, who's so hopped up on negative feelings for most of the story, positive emotions like love and fraternity can almost seem new, or at least manifest in their own special way. His female counterpart, Satsuki, is not only dealing with accepting the friendship of her teammates, but discovering feelings she can't fully grasp yet for a certain knucklehead ninja…**

 **That should be all for now. Keep an eye out for more stuff. I'm still, _still_ working on "The Titans of Tomorrow." The Flash is surprisingly hard to write for.**

 **Until next time.**


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